Often, doctors have to attach various soft tissues, such as tendons and ligaments, to hard tissue, such as bone. To provide an alternative to suturing the tissue directly through tunnels in the bone, suture anchors have been developed to aid in the attachment of soft tissue to bone. Generally, the doctor will attach such soft tissue to bone by suturing the soft tissue to a suture anchor that has been placed in the bone. During this suturing procedure, the surgeon must pass a suture through the tissue to be repaired, attach it to the suture anchor, and knot the suture so that the tissue is securely fastened to the suture anchor. Often, the suture anchor is prepackaged with sutures and possibly pre-attached needles, thereby obviating the need for the surgeon to pass sutures through the suture anchor himself.
The suture anchor and corresponding sutures are delivered by any number of devices currently commercially available from manufacturers such as Mitek and Arthrex. Typically, the delivery device includes a handle, shaft, suture anchor, and sutures, possibly with needles. The handle is attached to the proximal end of the shaft and the suture anchor is attached to the distal end of the shaft.
The sutures are often attached in some way to the handle or enclosed within it. When the sutures and/or needles are not contained within the handle of the insertion device (for instance, when they are held in a separate tray) the surgeon often has to use two hands to remove the suture and needles from the tray. This can be difficult to accomplish while also holding the insertion instrument. Alternatively, each end of a given suture may have a needle attached thereto, all of which are attached or enclosed within the handle. The suture lengths run along the shaft from the proximal end to the distal end and are threaded through the suture anchor attached to the distal end of the shaft. Often, in these prior art devices, the preattached sutures are easily tangled with each other, adding difficulty and time to the operation, or cannot be dispensed from the handle with only one hand. Further, in the situations in which both sutures and needles are contained in the handle of the device, the needles get entangled with the sutures, or alternatively, must be removed from the handle and/or passed through the shaft of the device, which can be difficult, time consuming, or require two hands to accomplish.
Thus, there is a need in the prior art for a device for inserting suture anchors and/or other suture-containing implants into the body that provides a simple way to insert the implant without tangling the sutures and/or needles.